


Alter Alterum

by cosmickaiju, mageofmind (renegadeartist)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dissociation, Dr Nyarlathotep, Episode: 2006 Xmas The Runaway Bride, Episode: s02e09 The Satan Pit, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Post-Episode: s02e09 The Satan Pit, The Cartmel Masterplan, non-consensual memory alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 17:51:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16163873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmickaiju/pseuds/cosmickaiju, https://archiveofourown.org/users/renegadeartist/pseuds/mageofmind
Summary: Something can’t exist before the universe. It’s not possible.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s impossible for something to have existed before the universe. Simply impossible. No way it could happen.  
  
But there is evidence of the contrary in front of them, thrashing against chains, roaring unintelligibly. A mess of a timeline, a horror of dimensional echoes, and it all hammers against their head and they know with a certainty that is not theirs that _it is telling the truth_.  
  
But it can’t be, because there was nothing before the universe. The contradiction hurts their head, pounds at something, a wall of purposeful ignorance. They push it aside, because this isn’t the time, this isn’t the place. They have to save- save Rose. Make sure she’s safe. And the rest of the crew, pretend they’re not secondary.  
  
They shatter the jar, and they fall against their ship. There is the taste of _probability_ on their tongue, sharp with a metal tang and more than a hint of ozone. Their hands are all over the timelines, because this is so important, and things can’t spiral out of control like they always do.  
  
As they’re turning the key of their ship, a thought drifts into their head, a question that asks, _Why are you pretending?_  
  
They push open the door without unlocking it, because they’re intertwined in a way other sentient beings couldn’t comprehend, past, future, present, as much as those things matter.  
  
And they fly the ship without touching the controls because there are no mayfly humans standing there for them to impress, and -  
  
_Something can’t exist before the universe. It’s not possible. Because, if it is possible, then they’re-_  
  
Ida is easy to find and retrieve, and the shuttle that’s hurtling towards a black hole is easy to save.  
  
“My people practically invented black holes,” slips out of their mouth, and there’s-  
  
_Nothing could have existed before the universe, because if it did then I haven’t always been myself._  
  
“In fact,” they say with a cheeky grin. “They did.”  
  
_And I was there._

_  
  
_ There's a cheer to them, to their words,  enrgy thrumming through their body, something sharp and tangy and like stardust itself. Because they're alive, because Rose is alive and virtually undamageable in their ship, in their domain. That thing in them that was pushing before-- go down, go down, _go down_ \-- never from the beast thrills, because they'd won, because even some creature from before time was no match for them, and what could stop them now and--  
  
_It's awfully boring having everything bend to their whim._  
  
And the pieces of them are warring, the could be's and the pasts that shouldn't be, and it's pulling at their seams, drawing them to distraction, as the humans question who they are.  
  
“The stuff of legends,” they say, a flicker of amusement running through them. If only they knew how true that was. Except—  
  
Except surely they just meant their travels, remembered for heroics, never sticking around—  right?  
  
They rub their temples, once they disconnect from the other ship, once they've reassured Rose and she's gone off to bed. They've got quite the fierce headache.  
  
It’s not fire, not quite, but it’s a crackling and splitting heat and pain and something that they think they’re desperate to forget, but they can’t remember why. And things are bleeding through, details they don’t want, things they’ve tried to forget, burnt sky and twin suns, the darkness of the past that everyone ignored.  
  
And there are things that they’ve always known that no one else knew, that earned them strange looks and distance from others and names they didn’t want, but had to accept anyways.  
  
(and there is a past beyond that, jungles and cities under construction, stellar engineers and warfare that crossed planets, civilizations that predated time in any significant sense)  
  
But they don’t want to think about that, because it makes their head hurt, makes it as heavy as it is light, and they might be stumbling around but might as easily be standing still. And they might be sobbing or screaming or laughing madly, but alternately, completely silent. There’s a disconnect, and they can’t get it to line up, to reattach. They don’t know what it is, but it’s dark and it presses against them and _but of course you know, you’ve just forgotten.  
  
_ And _you just need a push, and then you’ll remember_.  
  
And _you know you can’t acknowledge this because then who knows what you’ll do.  
  
_ And _what’s left to hold up the Spiral with your people gone?  
  
_ And _you, of course.  
  
_ And things snap into place abruptly, and they’re collapsed in a corridor, and Rose is fluttering soft hands around them, spun gold hair and eyes that once held too much far too much, concern apparent and leaking.  
  
“Doctor?” she asks hesitantly. “You alright?”  
  
They blink, stand up, wobble slightly.  
  
“I’m always alright,” they reply, voice sounding a bit off, even to their own ears. A bit like they’re hearing it through cotton, even a bit nasally, as light-headed as they are. They start to move— maybe a steaming cup tea will help clear their head.  
  
But there’s something still unsettled in them, out of place. And there's equations floating before their eyes, except they're not maths and equations in any _rational_ sense of the word, they're not numbers, they're not even _present_ ; swirling arcs and blurred edges and möbius strips, a billion potentialities that could never-should never exist, not in this universe, but they're sure they know them all the same.  
  
And they're muttering phrases incantations under their breath, in words long since dead by their looming, (except how could they have forgotten they'd known them anyways), and something shifts, _transforms_ , like putty under the force of their will. Except they shouldn't, they can't, they're too dangerous, they can't be the only with-with this except _they are.  
  
_ And they cant decide, _they can't decide_ , its wrong, its right, its natural, familiar, and it's tearing them apart into something else, something o---  
  
and they're  fr            tu r

                          ac              i ng  


There's a hand on their shoulder. There's the warm presence of their Ship, gently doing her best to smooth out the pieces again to push the— the— something they can feel settling back into the recesses of their mind, like some sort of poisonous chameleon. They find they can finally breathe again, for the first time since they'd gone into that pit.  
  
“What _happened_ down there?”  
  
“I–” they find their voice cracking, so they press a hand – which hand? – against their mouth – which mouth? – and try to wrestle down the strangled wail that wants to escape. They swallow and manage, “It– nothing. Nothing. I’m fine.”  
  
They turn on their heel, and they’re still wearing the coat – should have thrown it off (could make it so you did) – and it fans out behind them with the motion. “Tea,” they manage. “Want some tea? I’m going to make some. Calm us all down.”  
  
But there’s a hand on their shoulder and it makes them want to shrink away, disappear forever, and things _twist_ in a way they usually don’t and her hand is by her side and she never even thought to touch them.  
  
But there’s a distant, fading confusion in her eyes as her mind tries to reconcile two sets of memories. Then, she shakes her head and smiles, and they feel relief that she’s dismissed their– their what?  
  
_What did you do?_  
  
“Tea sounds lovely. Could you make the purple kind? From that garden on that one moon?”  
  
They nod and she follows them, and after tea it’s all fine and good, and there’s darkness shoved back into its box, where it should be, ignored and forgotten.  
  
( _But, really, you can’t possibly expect it to go that smoothly again. Forgotten once is an insult not likely to happen again._ )  
  
It’s a few months later that the walls of the universes close again, and darkness wells up from half forgotten cracks.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

They wonder, sometimes, why they’re still pretending, when it makes things spiral out of control, when it makes them _lose.  
  
__Fun,_ something in their head taunts, and it makes them sick, because they know it’s right, know they gain a certain sort of glee from the chaos. It was more exhilarating, simply moving with the universes whims. Until it wasn’t. Until they lost someone. (And they hadn’t lied to her, for once, that day— without the rest of their kind, even they couldn’t prevent the destabilization of tearing through— it was too much weight to bear).  
  
Habit, they add to their list later, as they’re speeding their Ship along the highway, attempting to catch up with Donna, string wrapped unnecessarily around the controls. It’s not so much deception they’ve convinced themselves, not really, when they’re doing it to make the humans feel *safer*, there’s nothing wrong with them not knowing. And it serves as a distraction, along with Donna, once they’ve rescued her, bounding along down deep into the base beneath the Thames.  
  
But it could only last so long once they’d found out what was down there— what had done this to Donna. They had— no, their people had (they weren’t that old, right?) fought the Racnoss, long ago, and now they were here, ready to devour this planet— and that was wrong, they had to protect this place, had to protect the humans. And it’s so simply, so easy really, once they let go a bit let the potentials swirl around them, glide over their being as they tug on the ones they want. And they’re drowning and burning, and they’re going to protect this planet they’ve grown attached to, it’s _theirs_ and these creatures are going to _die_ , and—   
  
“Doctor— you can stop now!”  
  
And it’s later, after they have, in fact, stopped, after she’s refused their offer to come with them, said they _scared_ her, that they remember the third, proper reason. Because they’re dangerous.  
  
And she insists that they find someone. Someone to stop them. Maybe she knows that it’s easier to pretend when there’s someone to pretend for.


End file.
